Fall River CSO project's next phase to dig up parking lot

Construction of a planned $6 million screening and disinfection facility at Bicentennial Park is the next phase of the Combined Sewer Overflow project, and will include adjusting park access from President Avenue, city officials announced.

Construction of a planned $6 million screening and disinfection facility at Bicentennial Park is the next phase of the Combined Sewer Overflow project, and will include adjusting park access from President Avenue, city officials announced.

The start-up of the 2½-year project was actually delayed a year recently by city request under the 1992 court order mandating the city treat sewage and wastewater polluting Mount Hope Bay.

Extending the start to May 2013 helps delay new payment costs and the expected increases in sewer bills, Administrator of Community Utilities Terrance Sullivan said.

This major phase will include tearing up the parking lot at Bicentennial Park and building underground chambers slightly larger than the lot to treat and pump the wastewater flow into the Taunton River, Sullivan said.

The facility’s purpose is to remove the larger solids and add chemicals that kill fecal coliform bacteria, the main polluter, into the water bodies. That was the cause of the lawsuit brought decades ago by the Conservation Law Foundation that resulted in the court order.

This project will require permitting under the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act and approval by the state Legislature, Sewer Commission and City Council. Past requests by city councilors to consider the project early in the approval stage caused Sullivan to issue a report at this early stage, he said.

Above ground, the existing parks department building for restrooms and storage will be demolished.

The completed construction, scheduled by Dec. 31, 2015, includes a new building for parks and for CSO functions, a newly paved parking lot at the President Avenue entrance and reconfigured and improved road access. An emergency generator will also be installed.

Sullivan issued three road options from President Avenue, the recommended one connecting across the park to Brownell Street, adjacent to the Commonwealth Landing project, south of about 20 acres of commercial and industrial sites.

That route, Sullivan wrote, “provides the best access for maintenance personnel, as well as improves access to landowners off Brownell Street, as well as the public utilizing the (state) boat ramp area.”

He said trucks maintaining the facility or fueling the emergency generator would require better access into the park. “That’s the most logical way,” he said.

The controversy over traffic flow north from Route 79 and the old Brightman Street Bridge during other construction off Davol Street precipitated his seeking City Council input at this stage, Sullivan said.

Such road construction through the park would require approval of the Department of Fish and Game as owners of the state boat ramp.

His detailed communication to the council will likely be referred to the Finance Committee or other subcommittee, at which time Sullivan said he expects to issue a slide presentation report. Engineers for Camp Dresser McKee, the city’s CSO consultants, will accompany him.

Page 2 of 2 - The communication is listed on tonight’s City Council agenda.

In the history summary Sullivan wrote, he said the city has expended about $160 million, including the recently completed Cove Street screening and disinfectant plant. It was a $4.8 million project and will be monitored through May 2013, under the court agreement.

The first phase of the full $185 million CSO project was from 1997 to 2000 when the wastewater treatment plant was expanded to double the flow rate from 50 million to 106 million gallons a day.

For nearly the next decade, the city built through rock a three-mile tunnel and nine drop shafts to deliver flow from the near surface sewers to the CSO tunnel.

Other major phases included expanding the Quequechan Valley intercepting sewer and the Cove Street facility.

Another phase, the $3 million Central Street pump station rehabilitation near Battleship Cove, is scheduled to be completed by July 31, according to Sullivan’s timeline.

Under the phase with the President Avenue screening and disinfectant facility, similar projects are forecast for the City Pier and Alton Street.

The city is looking at alternatives to the latter two projects, scheduled to be completed by the end of 2018, Sullivan said.